A night in Odesa

The sun was setting as we drove towards Odesa. We started early from Khmelnytskyi and were in desperate need of a coffee by 9am, but every service station for several kilometres was full of soldiers, taking a break before they got back onto dilapidated buses, to go who knows where. The fighting in places like Bakhmut is so ferocious that the death toll, and need for reinforcements, must be immense.

Every time we see these soldiers I wonder how many of them will return. Yesterday we had another of our unforgettable moments when two soldiers approached us outside a service station, guns slung over their backs, which always makes me slightly nervous. But one of the soldiers was smiling broadly and greeted us in English. He told us that he lived in England for a little while and his daughter lives near Cambridge. He seemed really proud to be able to converse in English and he showed us photos on his mobile phone from Kherson, where he had just come from - scenes of utter destruction. He wished us well and told us to be careful.

It's quite mild here in Odesa, whereas it was snowing in Lviv (and also in Trawden!), so we took a walk in a park before we reached our hosts' house. It was just a little park in a busy, fairly run-down area on the outskirts of the city. But it has this amazingly imaginative children's climbing frame..

Then, as we were wandering along a street of small stalls, we came across this cat, looking so longingly at two bottles of milk...

This evening we're making final preparations for our aid drop tomorrow, which includes assessing the level of risk from shelling in the area.